Remember all the outlandish remarks Trump made during his first post-debate campaign rally?
Donald Trump was riding high after President Joe Biden's terrible debate performance in June and he took the opportunity to play up his victory in the immediate aftermath of the debate.
Trump celebrated his win over Biden with a victory lap campaign rally in Virginia just one a day after his historic face-off with Biden. He ended up gushing about his success and attacked after a few of his political foes.
The former president spoke in front of thousands of his supporters at a campaign rally in Chesapeake on June 28th where he hammered home the message that Biden wasn’t fit to remain in office following his debate performance on the previous day.
“The question every voter should be asking themselves today is not whether Joe Biden can survive a 90-minute debate performance, but whether America can survive four more years of crooked Joe Biden in the White House,” Trump said according to Politico.
“In fact, I don’t know if we can really survive five more months,” Trump continued. It was a belief that many of Biden’s political opponents might have been thinking in the hours after his debate with Trump.
Biden had a poor showing throughout his 90-minute debate with Trump. The President’s performance was so bad that the Associated Press noted it sparked concern among Biden’s allies and Democrats about his chances of reelection.
The President spent much of the debate stumbling over his words and having problems with getting his words out. Biden appeared as if he couldn’t complete his sentences, an issue the Associated Press wrote made some wonder if he should be replaced.
Concerns about Biden's fitness for office following the debate would later lead to his withdrawal from the race and eventual replacement by Kamala Harris.
Trump capitalized on Biden’s poor performance in his first post-debate rally and made it clear that all the debate conditions favored Biden but that Biden still ended up messing it up despite having a week to prepare for the historic encounter.
“Despite the fact that crooked Joe Biden spent the entire week at Camp David resting, working, studying — he studied very hard. He studied so hard that he didn’t know what the hell he was doing,” Trump told supporters according to The Hill.
“He got the debate rules that he wanted. He got the date that he wanted. He got the network that he wanted with the [moderators] that he wanted,” Trump continued. “No amount of rest or rigging could help him defend his atrocious record. It’s not defensible.”
Governor Glenn Youngkin also appeared alongside Trump at the Chesapeake rally in a very interesting show of support which saw Youngkin commit to doing all he could to get his state won over to the Republican side in the upcoming presidential election.
Biden won Virginia in 2020 and Youngkin was once one of the GOP’s more prominent anti-Trump Republicans according to the Associated Press, but the Virginia Governor threw his support behind Trump in March and endorsed him.
“This is about strength versus weakness,” Youngkin told the crowd, “we have seen the weak America that Joe Biden has created, and we all lived through the strong America that Donald Trump built.” However, it wasn’t just Biden who was attacked in Virginia.
Trump took some time during his rally in Chesapeake to launch a bizarre attack against Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, saying he had become a Palestinian, implying that he was once a strong supporter of Israel who switched sides to get more votes.
“Schumer has become a Palestinian. He’s Jewish but he’s become a Palestinian,” the former president told his supporters according to Salon. This was a comment that the news agency pointed out Trump used the previous day during his debate with Biden.
Trump also reaffirmed his belief that the January 6th “hostages” should be freed saying “they should free them now for what they’ve gone through” and made his case for why Virginians should vote for him over Biden.
“Our case to Virginia is very simple,” Trump said. “We will seal the border, we will make the American dream affordable again, but we will bring back the American dream — something you don’t hear about anymore,” Trump said according to Politico.
The former president's first post-debate rally against Biden was one for the record books regarding outlandish Trump's remarks. However, more recent campaign rallies have seen him take his comments and attacks to whole new levels, a problem that only seems to be getting worse as the 2024 Presidential Election season draws close to its end.